Trump says China is doing “nothing” to stop the North’s missile program

He also faults his predecessors for failing on China trade policies

“I am very disappointed in China,” Trump wrote in a pair of Twitter posts. “…they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!”

North Korea’s test Friday of an intercontinental ballistic missile was its second of the long-range weapon in a month. The first on July 4 showed the missile had the range to reach Alaska.

Friday’s test was designed to show the Hwasong-14 missile’s maximum range with a “large-sized heavy nuclear warhead,” a statement from Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency said.

It said Washington should regard the launch as a “grave warning.”

“The whole US mainland” is now within North Korea’s reach, KCNA quoted Kim as saying. The North Korean leader called Pyongyang’s weapons program “a precious asset” that cannot be reversed or replaced, according to the agency.

“The only way for defending the sovereignty of our nation and its right to existence under the present extreme situation is to bolster up nuclear force both in quality and quantity,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said, paraphrasing Kim. It said Kim stressed “the need to get the nuclear warheads deployed for national defense always on standby so as to be fired any moment.”

North Korea has threatened nuclear war in the past, but it is unclear just how advanced the country’s nuclear program really is. It is thought to have a handful of crude atomic bombs, but there is considerable outside debate about the state of its arsenal.